Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. But the constant stream of news coming out of Mexico reminds this writer of the hype surrounding whatever fill-in-the-blank disease that has been trotted out in times past to stigmatize the LGBT community. Of course this time, now that straight people are engaging in behaviors (attending school, going to movies, etc.) which provide such fertile ground for these exotic viruses to fester, we see the World Health Organization leap into action while the President of the United States urges everyone to take a deep breath.

Obama’s assurances aside though, what if — think of it — what if this viral outbreak escapes into the general population? Won’t all hell break loose?

Oh wait. Straight people are the general population.

And what a difference a population makes. It was just a little over a year ago that anti-gay activists hyped an outbreak of a drug-resistant strain of staph (MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) in the Castro as the latest “gay plague.” That hype disappeared about as quickly as it began, but today it serves as a textbook example of how quickly research based on a stigmatized population can become fodder for further stigmatizing.

Resurgent Diseases begins the chapter with a reprint of Sabin Russell’s San Francisco Chronicle which helped kick off the MRSA scare to begin with. My article follows, which is appropriate because I wrote it, in part, as a direct answer to the Chronicle article. This makes the juxtaposition of these two articles in the same textbook ideal. The four other articles rounding out the chapter discuss the balance between individual rights and public health, and the role that governmental authorities and non-governmental organizations can play to address resurgent diseases.

With the latest fears surrounding the swine flu outbreak, Resurgent Diseases may be among the more timely textbooks to come along in a long time.

It was just last January when the San Francisco Chronicle stoked fears over a new “gay plague” in their article about methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MSRA), a bacterial staph infection that is resistant to certain antibiotics. An article published in the Annals of Internal Medicinedocumented an outbreak of MRSA in the Castro, which lead anti-gay activists to falsely accuse gay men of spreading MRSA from the gay community into the straight community. The only problem with that charge is that MRSA had been making its rounds among heterosexuals for several decades. Ironically, athletes are at particularly high risk.

San Francisco public health officials are warning of an outbreak of a virus that has sickened dozens of people at Moscone Center.

About 70 people who fell ill had been at the Moscone Center between April 30 and Thursday, authorities said Friday. All but three were staff members working at the convention center, said Moscone spokesman David Perry.

Michael Petrelis observes that while the MRSA story in January hyped fears of a dreaded disease in the gay community infecting the “general population,” this story is being treated by some news outlets as a light-hearted, low-key tech story (this norovirus epidemic started during a JavaOne tech conference) aimed at calming fears rather than stoking them. He noticed that CNET’s coverage was downright adolescent:

To clarify, this is a virus that makes you barf and gives you diarrhea. It’s not the kind of virus that sends Viagra-pitching e-mails to all your friends or treats you to a Rick Astley sing-along every time you turn on your computer.

No, you won’t drop dead from it. Norovirus is better known as one of the viruses that causes a nasty stomach flu. Symptoms only last about a day or two, but it’s highly contagious. Just to up the gross-out factor: Norovirus is found in the fecal matter or vomit of people who are infected. If they don’t wash their hands properly, they spread it when they handle food or drinks.

The norovirus is passed exactly the same way as MRSA — by people who don’t wash up. And get this: fecal matter is a culprit. That detail is an anti-gay activist’s wet dream. I wonder when Matt Barber and Peter LaBarbera will exploit this latest danger coming from the heterosexual community.

The hype eventually retreated somewhat — some members of the mainstream media took a deep breath and sought out some second opinions as UCSF offered a half-hearted apology. But that did little to clarify the situation, and the hype of the “flesh-eating superbug” has continued to take on a life of its own.

The following people were present at the meeting: Barbara French, Associate Vice Chancellor, University Relations; Kieran Flaherty, Director of State Government Relations; Shane Showdon, Director of LGBT Resources; Aimee Levine, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs, Beth Mooney, assistant to Barbara French and Dr. Chip Chambers, a scientist and professor involved in the MRSA study. …

…

The core problem presented by the press release was a misapplication of epidemiological terminology that implied that gay men were about to unleash a MRSA strain on the “general population” instead of acknowledging that the strain already exists in the “general population,” despite findings that it seems to have a higher preponderance among men who have sex with men.

This misconception was fueled by comments by one of the lead authors of the study, a postdoctoral scientist, Binh Diep, who expressed grave concern about “a potential spread of this strain into the general population.”

…UCSF was quick to acknowledge the boundaries breached by Binh Diep. As a postdoctoral scientist, while excited about communicating the findings of his study, and whilst genuinely hoping to communicate the information in the interests of promoting health, he was unequipped to recognize the extent to which his comments could be misconstrued….

…Ms. French acknowledged that an internal task force had been created in the wake of the MRSA fallout, to streamline and coordinate efforts between and among various departments relating to the dissemination of news and public communications. This is an important and significant development.

It looks like Peter LaBarbera’s the one who could use some fact-checking.

Peter LaBarbera has yet further musings about MRSA. But because there’s nothing new and they really aren’t very interesting, I think I’ll just illustrate for you the limitations of my artistic abilities.

Update for Peter LaBarbera’s readers: The post you’re really looking for is here: Is MRSA The New Gay Plague? It’s the post he doesn’t want you to see.

As we reported earlier, the usual crowd of anti-gay activists jumped all over the faulty stories about outbreaks of MRSA in San Francisco and Boston. Although subsequentreporting (and our indepth analysis) clearly shows that the anti-gays were completely wrong in their accusations, rather than repent of their false accusations, they simply changed directions.

Concerned Women for America issued a press release quoting their own Matt Barber “inviting” the gay community to join his campaign against bathhouses

Therefore, these groups should publicly condemn those specific ‘high-risk behaviors’ which this study has concluded are responsible for spreading MRSA among homosexuals.

“In light of this behaviorally related MRSA outbreak,” said Barber, “we additionally ask HRC and other groups to call on local health agencies to shut down the many bathhouses and sex clubs around the country where men meet for anonymous sex with other men, often multiple partners, on a daily basis. These places create the ‘perfect storm’ for infectious disease, including MRSA.

Well, folks, I’m not exactly expecting Human Rights Campaign and the rest of the “gay” lobby to hop on this request for cooperation from my good friend Matt Barber of CWA, but it sure would be progress if they did.

So will Box Turtle Bulletin join the cry to close down those bathhouses in San Francisco and Boston that were so integral to the spread of MRSA? Well, we might consider the question, if they existed!

What the anti-gays failed to notice is that neither San Francisco nor Boston has a single public gay bathhouse. San Francisco closed down bathhouses in 1984 at the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic and the closest bathhouses to San Francisco are in Berkeley and San Jose. Bostonites can head down to Providence.

So yet again we see that the claims of anti-gays have no basis in reality.

But while reasonable heads are coming forward, the unreasonable ones are still hacking away. Concerned Woman Matt Barber has issued a cynical and shameless press release calling on the homosexuals to “join him” to “help curb the spread of a potentially deadly strain of Staph infection.”

The gay community doesn’t really need an invitation from Barber. Given the neglect and open hostility that too many so-called Christians demonstrated during the HIV/AIDS crisis, the gay community has had to learn how to draw on their own resources. But if Barber were to actually consider the overwhelming weight of medical evidence concerning MRSA, he might consider issuing a call to the “straight community” to help curb the spread of MRSA into the gay community. After all, if one were to really look for someone to blame, that’s the first place one should look.

But don’t count on it. People like Barber have no qualms about exploiting the suffering of others to score cheap political points. If there was any doubt about that, Barber’s latest stunt is just another example.

A grossly misinterpreted study about drug-resistant staph infections in a gay community in San Francisco, conducted by the University of California, San Francisco, has led some newspapers and numerous anti-gay groups on the Internet to proclaim that an AIDS-like epidemic is upon us, spread through sinful behavior.

… While that might sound ominous, the infection has less to do with being gay and more to do with living in a closed community, which like a school or ship serves as an incubator to spread the disease first within the group and then to the rest of us.

… The research article states that the MRSA strain can be transmitted sexually because, well, there’s usually touching involved. For this community, sexual activity is the probable transition route. For the Amish, MRSA could be transmitted through the sharing of contaminated hammers.

Our report, “Testing the Premise: Is MRSA The New Gay Plague?” provides examples where MRSA was spread on a US Navy ship and among school sports teams. We also talk about its spread in an upstate New York religious community. They weren’t Amish though, as far as I can tell.

Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber couldn’t conceal their glee when the lead researcher’s ill-conceived statements landed on their lap. Now that UCSF has apologized and denounced LaBarbera’s and Barber’s statements and major news outlets are correcting initial reports, will we see a similar apology from LaBarbera and Barber? After all it would be the Christian thing to do. I somehow doubt it. They’ve built a career by exploiting the suffering of others to score cheap political points. “With love,” of course, as they like to say when they remember it’s what they’re supposed to say. But in the end, this is just another day at the office for them.

Statement from UCSF Dept of Public Affairs regarding study on emergence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus clone USA300 in men who have sex with men

We regret that our recent news report (1-14-08) about an important population-based study on MRSA USA300 with public health implications contained some information that could be interpreted as misleading. We deplore negative targeting of specific populations in association with MRSA infections or other public health concerns, and we will be working to ensure that accurate information about the research is disseminated to the health community and the general public.

Update: This statement resulted from an inquiry from San Francisco activist Michael Petrelis. There’s more information at his web site, including a personal note from UCSF.

In our latest report, “Testing the Premise: Is MRSA The New Gay Plague?”, we examine some of the medical research on MRSA over the past two decades — there are over 750 articles listed in the PubMed Database on community-acquired MRSA — and reach several conclusions which should be obvious to anyone familiar with the subject:

San Francisco is not the epicenter of the new disease,

this disease in fact is not new,

and gay men are not spreading it into the “general population.”

The overwhelming medical evidence actually shows the opposite — it’s the “general population” that’s responsible for spreading MRSA into the gay community. In our report, we examine some of the communities that have been hardest hit by MRSA, including:

Cities all across the U.S. and around the world.

American Indians, rural Alaskans, Native Hawaiians, prisoners, and kids in day care;

A religious community in upstate New York;

Soldiers and sailors in the U.S. and on a ship at sea;

And athletes. Lots of athletes. The USC Trojans, St. Louis Rams, Miami Dolphins and Washington Redskins were all hit in recent years, as were other professional, college and high school programs around the country. (One study blamed “cosmetic body shaving and turf burns,” and the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine described MSRA as “the latest sports epidemic.”)

But for some reason, there has not been a hue and cry over a “flesh-eating jock staph” threatening the “general population.” In fact, none of this has anything to do with gay men. But that doesn’t keep the popular press and anti-gay demagogues from accusing disease-ridden gay men of spreading filthy diseases to an innocent, unsuspecting population. Sound familar?

In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.

When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.

In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.

From the Inside: Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out”

On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.

Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!

Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.

Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.

Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.

The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.